Chop down a .com to local domains - Is it worth it?

[Svetoslav]

I'm wondering what would be the best approach for further expanding the online presence of the business I work for. Let me start off with the resources at my disposal.

We own visafirst.com and run the business for 7 years. All that time we had the domain online. There was a penalty back in 2005, I think (for hidden text). I've been dealing with the domain since 2007.

In the last few years we got translations in French, German, Italian, some pages in Japanese, and recently we got it translated in Spanish. The translations don't hold all the products the English version has. We translate only products which we can offer to the targeted audience. So far, I use language folders /en/, /fr/, /de/ etc. I have the settings in Google's Webmaster Tools set to the most appropriate country (the one we want to attract customers from). We own a lot of local domains .co.uk, .ie, .fr .de, .es, .jp, etc. Currently we either use them for small projects, like AdWords (to improve CTR) or have them point to the .com version with canonical.

I like nothing more than the idea of having the local domains appear in local search results, without that inflicting damage on the .com version. If I decide to go with the local domains and redirect (probably I will use canonical to avoid the redirect mess) the existing portions of the site to their relevant local domain - visafirst.com/fr/ to point to visafirst.fr etc., I'm afraid that I would take too much away from the domain in terms of content and backlinks.

So, I'm faced with the following question - Should I risk it with the local domains where we have physical presence, or should I continue using the flagship domain.

Also, would local domains improve the CTR a lot? I will test that with AdWords in the days to come, however it would be nice to know if someone has faced this before.

Thank You,

Svet Stefanov

[Svetoslav]

Thanks Ryan! The folder structure is what saved the site when one of our bigger sites went for local domains. THey were poorly maintained and in 6 months time they went under. What I will do is try the local domains on AdWords. I will use the canonical link element to try and pass any possible links the local sites might gather.

The flag idea is great. We will refresh the design soon and we will have them in mind.

In a way I will use AdWords to try and gather some natural links. At one point I might test the new domains on their own, once the have enoigh links.

Stephen, I'm afraid I can't use the redirect in this case. That is, if I don't want to be lynched by a mob of angry web developers. However, your idea makes sense. I will give it a go on a smaller site and see what happens there.

Thanks guys!

[RyanKent]

Hi Svet.

If I understand your question, you are asking if it is a good idea to break up your existing .com site into smaller sites, each related to their respective country. The reason you are considering this approach is to improve your ranking in local search.

I would suggest that you already have the ideal structure. You have a .com domain, your domain name includes an important keyword, and you have the proper folder structures for each language.

Some suggestions I would offer:

• replace the letter identifiers for each language at the top of your site with flags representing each country. For people who do not speak english, letters can be confusing but people do very well recognizing their country's flag

• consider specific landing pages per country, not language. British English is not the same as American English. The same idea applies to Spanish and other languages. Words, spelling and phrases can be very different. If you want to rank well in local-based search, focus the local area, which is more then just the language.

-  build local links. If you want your /es/ page to do well, obtain links from within Spain pointing to the page. Your site is well established (7 years), covers 9 languages, but has a relatively weak link profile. Create a link campaign to generate links for your country-based pages.

[firstconversion]

Test with one.

I would redirect as a much stronger signal than canonical. Theres not much difference in the workload of either one for your devs